Each week this fall, we鈥檒l introduce new 乐播传媒 professors who have tenure-track positions on the faculty.
This year鈥檚 nine tenure appointments are in the disciplines of art and visual culture, classical and medieval studies, economics, English, environmental studies, dance, politics (two appointments), and psychology.
This week we introduce the seventh of our nine new faculty members, Katie Adkison.
Name: Katie Adkison
Title: Assistant Professor of English
Degrees from: University of California, Santa Barbara, Ph.D. in English; Colorado State University, M.A. in English literature, B.A. in English education
Her work: Adkison studies the role of an individual鈥檚 spoken voice in early modern English literature 鈥� what the actual feeling of speaking means and conveys, especially in terms of power structures.
In Adkison鈥檚 scholarship, voice becomes a 鈥渒ind of embodied sensation. Not literally a sixth sense, but something more akin to sensing knowledge than to just a tool of communication.鈥�
Her dissertation: 鈥淭he Sense of Speech: Voice and Sovereignty in Early Modern Tragedy,鈥� describes the relationship between early modern theories of sovereignty and the phenomenology of the voice in Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy.
For example: In the opening scene of King Lear, the titular monarch decides to divide his kingdom based on how much his three daughters say they love him. His first two daughters make elaborate but insincere declarations of love.
Lear then turns to his third daughter, Cordelia, and asks, 鈥淲hat can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters?鈥� Cordelia, who does truly love the king, responds, 鈥淣othing, my Lord.鈥� She continues:
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more nor less…. (1.1.91-93)
In referring to her own voice, Cordelia is trying to tell her father 鈥渟omething about politics and about love that his love test is failing to understand,” says Adkison. She’s saying that “love and politics are not mathematical equations. You can’t give more love through your voice the way that you can give more money or more of something tangible.鈥�
The opening scene is a kernel in the larger lesson of the play. Cordelia, in effect, is vocalizing the fact that her vocalization can鈥檛 do what her father wants it to do 鈥� it can鈥檛 be reduced to words. 鈥淪he鈥檚 saying, 鈥楾here’s more to love here, just as there’s more to language in the very voice I’m speaking through.鈥欌��
The scene sets the stage for the tragedy. 鈥淟ear wants words to equal inheritance, a kingdom, power.鈥� Cordelia wants no part of it. 鈥淎nd so it ends, with death, tears, and so much pain,” says Adkison.
Iambic sortameter: In King Lear鈥檚 opening scene, Shakespeare uses a jarring version of iambic pentameter for some of Cordelia鈥檚 lines. 鈥淭he rhythm is off,鈥� says Adkison, noting that the Bard sometimes “uses an extra syllable, 11 instead of the usual 10 鈥� or even a whole extra two-syllable iamb 鈥� in some lines.”
Shakespeare did that often, she explains, usually to draw attention to something. 鈥淚f the rhythm is off, you are supposed to feel it as an audience member.鈥�
We can’t know the intentions of the author now or 500 years later. But the meaning is there, regardless. That’s magic to me.
Adkison recalls the moment that 鈥渟omething felt off in one of the lines. And so I started counting syllables, the way you’re supposed to when something feels off.鈥� The extra syllable 鈥渉ad to be purposeful. It’s too perfect not to be.”
In Cordelia鈥檚 11-syllable lines, there is 鈥渟omething that literally can鈥檛 be divided up. The rhythm of the lines is as out of step with her father鈥檚 demands as her inability to speak her love is. She鈥檚 really talking about vocal rhythm and the experience of voice to explain what鈥檚 going on.鈥�
A beautiful thing: 鈥淭he beautiful thing about how literature thinks about language is that we can’t know the intentions of the author now or 500 years later,” Adkison says. “But the meaning is there, regardless. There’s always something new to be parsed and to be found. That’s magic to me.”
Classroom magic: Sometimes, magical classroom moments happen when a teacher allows a discussion to go off the straight rails.
Last winter, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Adkison was teaching Thomas More’s Utopia. A student asked, “Is anyone watching The Good Place?” referring to the NBC fantasy comedy about a utopian, but problematic, afterlife.
Rather than guide the discussion back to the 16th century, Adkison took a moment to connect the dots. She noted the etymology of the word 鈥渦topia鈥� and how it 鈥渃an mean 鈥榯he good place鈥� or 鈥榥o place鈥� or 鈥榯he good place that cannot exist鈥� or something along those lines.鈥�
Eager for wordplay, Adkison鈥檚 students jumped at the chance to connect More鈥檚 Utopia to The Good Place, which led to a 鈥渃onversation about the way that the show uses and problematizes the notion of a utopia in such interesting ways.鈥�
Then she guided the students back to how More imagined what a good life looked like in his Utopia. 鈥淭he text is infamously sticky about how one constructs a good life, what it means to live the good life, and all the problems that are wrapped up in that text.鈥�
And a course is born: All of that left Adkison 鈥渨anting so badly to teach a class on utopia.鈥� And if you look at utopia, 鈥測ou have to teach the second half of the class on dystopias because it seems to be true that a good place for some frequently comes to mean a bad place for others.鈥�
鈥淐ollege students are special because they will think with you 鈥� taking on the agency of research and thinking of their learning as their own.鈥�
And, voil脿! This spring, Adkison will teach such a course on utopian and dystopian fiction, from More鈥檚 Utopia and Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World to George Orwell’s 1984 and the first of N.K. Jemisin鈥檚 Broken Earth trilogy. 鈥淚’m hoping we’ll end with the first season of The Good Place and try and end on a funny note 鈥� even if it’s not necessarily optimistic in all of the ways one wants it to be.鈥�
Why 乐播传媒? 鈥淚 was so excited when I visited 乐播传媒 to see how much collaboration happens between departments and between students and faculty. Collaborative research structures the idea of the undergraduate thesis that all students write here.鈥�
Why college? 鈥淐ollege students are special because they will think with you 鈥� taking on the agency of research and thinking of their learning as their own.鈥�
Finding her path: 鈥�At my core, I have always known I wanted to be a teacher,鈥� Adkison says.
鈥淚 thought I would be a high school English teacher for the rest of my life. But my path to graduate work was one I found late in the stages of my own bachelor’s degree, when I was taking education courses alongside literature courses. I realized I had more questions about the literature. I couldn’t be done.鈥�
